Literary Mixtape: Alexander Chee finds a heroine – with Beyoncé's help

When writing his novel set in the Second Empire in France, Alexander Chee found that a mix of Beyoncé, Azealia Banks and The Knife set the right mood for a story about ‘confident, bold, hilarious and sexy’ women of the era

By Alexander Chee for Literary Mixtapes by Electric Literature, part of the Guardian Books Network

The best books and music pairings: your recommendationsThe Queen of the Night came out on 2 February. Get a copy here

We’ve asked some of our favorite authors to make us a mixtape. This month’s installment is from Alexander Chee, whose new novel, Queen of the Night (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) comes out this week. It’s a novel about “one woman’s rise from pioneer girl to circus rider to courtesan to world-renowned diva in 19th Century Paris,” so yes, Chee’s mixtape includes a healthy dose of both Beyoncé and The Runaways. Put on your headphones, turn up the volume, and read on.

– The editors at Electric Literature

I wanted to forget the weak cinema courtesans I had seen and to try and imagine the women I was sure had existed

For summoning the air of beauty that knows itself, knows what it can make men and women do, there’s little better

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I watched the video to cast a spell on myself – and I decided it was the spell I wanted to cast over the whole novel

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